by Lori Drake
Tears welled up in her eyes as she realized that there wouldn’t be any more rehearsals with Chris. If she’d known their last session had really been their last, what would she have done differently? Stress less, enjoy dancing with him more? Encourage him to stand up his date and watch B-grade horror movies with her all night instead? Would it have made a difference, or was he destined to meet his end?
Sighing, she leaned her forehead against the glass. It was cool against her skin, and made it easier to hold back the tears. She wasn’t foolish enough to think she’d never dance again, but she’d be a fool if she thought it would ever be the same.
“Come and get it!” Emma called from the kitchen, pulling Joey back from her melancholy thoughts.
Turning from the window, Joey walked over to the breakfast bar and climbed up on a stool with the solemnity of an inmate facing her last meal. The plate Emma slid in front of her was piled high with eggs, bacon and hash browns with a side of sliced tomato and avocado.
Joey stared at the plate, then looked up at Emma. “This is ‘a little’?”
Emma shrugged, setting a glass of orange juice on the bar as well. “You don’t have to eat it all.” She paused, brow furrowing. “Where’s your coffee?”
Joey glanced over her shoulder. “Oh, I must have left it on the coffee table,” she said and started to slide down off the stool.
Emma frowned, but interjected quickly, “I’ll get it, go ahead and get started.”
Joey teetered on the edge of the stool for a few seconds before pulling herself back to the center.
“Thanks,” she said and shifted her focus back to the plate of food while her friend moved off. Picking up her fork, she poked at the food, speared a small piece of egg and put it in her mouth. It was warm and soft, perfectly seasoned, but it failed to satisfy. Joey chewed and swallowed it anyway, mechanically.
“Your phone rang earlier,” Emma said, as she walked back into the kitchen with Joey’s coffee in one hand and her phone in its life-proof case in the other. “It didn’t seem to bother you, but I turned the ringer off anyway. Figured you needed the sleep and whoever it was could wait until you were ambulatory.”
Grimacing, Joey mumbled a thank you and set her fork aside, reaching for the phone. A quick scan of her missed calls showed her that she’d missed multiple calls from her parents and brothers, suggesting that they’d heard the news. She wasn’t quite ready to deal with the family yet, but she did turn the ringer back on before setting the phone aside.
While Emma busied herself with cleaning up the kitchen, Joey went back to poking at her food. She ate a bite here and there, but spent more time pushing it around on the plate and watching Emma bustle around the kitchen than actually eating. Emma’s fastidious kitchen cleanup was a welcome distraction, and something about the smell of the soap and the sound of running water soothed Joey.
Silence settled between them, stretching longer than Joey would’ve liked. Her grieving mind began filling in the gaps with thoughts and memories she didn’t want to linger on. After a few minutes, she scrambled for something—anything—to talk about.
“What’s Cheryl shooting today? A wedding? Bar mitzvah?”
“Christening,” Emma said. She winced and flicked an apologetic glance at Joey, then went on. “A couple whose wedding she shot last year.”
Swallowing a fresh wave of emotion, Joey abandoned efforts to make small talk. She ate a little more, but ended up pushing the plate away a few minutes later with a lot left on it.
“Done?” Emma said, glancing over. Joey nodded and Emma moved over to reclaim the plate. “I’ll make you a doggie bag, in case you get hungry later.”
Another time, that might have made Joey laugh for reasons she couldn’t adequately explain. This time, she just nodded and took a sip of coffee, watching Emma move around the kitchen some more.
The subject of Chris hung in the air between them, something they were both reluctant to bring up.
Joey broke first. “I assume Cheryl told you about… what happened.”
Emma paused in the act of scraping leftovers into a plastic container. “Yeah,” she said. “It was quite a shock.” The fork resumed its scraping along the plate while silence settled between them again, seeming louder somehow for the sudden chasm it filled.
Joey fidgeted with her coffee cup, eventually saying, “Thanks for breakfast, Em. I’ll get out of your hair soon. I’m sure you have work—or something—to do today.” Emma was basically a shut-in, rarely venturing out of her home. She was a writer by trade, so she had that luxury.
“It’s no trouble, really. I wish I could do more. Do you want a shower? I’m sure I can find you a change of clothes that won’t fit too badly.” Emma moved back over to the bar, reaching for the used silverware.
Joey reached out and caught her friend’s hand, giving it a squeeze. Their eyes met, and Joey finally noticed that Emma’s eyes were bloodshot behind the lenses of her chunky, black plastic frames. She’d been crying, and recently.
“Oh, honey…” Joey said, some nurturing instinct rising from the depths of the ocean of grief inside her. She climbed down from the stool and walked around the counter to wrap her friend in a warm hug. “I didn’t realize you and Chris were close. You always seem to hold men at arm’s length.” There was a reason for it, too. Some sort of past trauma. It was a sensitive subject, and Joey didn’t know the details.
Emma hugged her back, and for a long moment they just stood there like that, giving and receiving support in silence. Joey felt tears welling up again, and failed to tamp them back down. They spilled down her cheeks, but she didn’t pull away. Instead, she buried her face in her friend’s shoulder. Emma trembled in her arms, and Joey tightened her embrace.
It was Emma that broke the silence this time. “What happened, Joey? Who would want to hurt Chris?”
The question surprised Joey enough that she didn’t answer right away.
“The police think it was a mugging,” she said, eventually. “Totally random.” But was it? The question lingered in the back of her mind; she kept it to herself. Wolves didn’t die of stab wounds, unless silver was involved. Silver usually meant hunters, but she hadn’t encountered one of those in her lifetime. Part of her had always suspected that hunters were just boogeymen lycanthrope parents used to keep their kids in line.
“That’s awful. Why didn’t he just give them what they wanted? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?” Emma pulled away enough to look at Joey again. Her green eyes were moist and she sniffled softly.
“I don’t know, Em. I just don’t know.” Joey kissed her friend’s cheek before withdrawing, wiping the tears from her own cheeks with the back of one hand. “Did you say something about a shower?”
True to her word, Emma scrounged up a t-shirt and a pair of sweat pants from Cheryl’s dresser, leaving them piled on the bathroom counter with clean towels and a brand new toothbrush, still in its package. The pants would have to be rolled up—Joey had always been a little bit envious of Cheryl’s seemingly endless legs—but they’d do. At any rate, Joey wasn’t in any state of mind to care about her appearance.
Once she was clean and dry, she flopped on the couch in her borrowed clothes and girded herself for the call she’d been putting off. She didn’t bother checking her voice mail first, just dialed her parents’ land line.
The line only rang once. “Grant residence,” a tense male voice answered.
“Hi Sam,” Joey said, recognizing her eldest brother’s voice. It sounded like he’d been waiting by the phone. Pacing, she imagined.
“Where are you?” he demanded.
“Nice to hear from you too,” Joey said, a little flatly. She heard her mother in the background—not what she was saying, exactly, but her agitated tone was unmistakable. “I’m fine, by the way.”
“Good. Mom’s been climbing the walls all morning.”
Her mother’s voice rose in the background. This time, Joey could make out her words. “Is that
her? Give me the phone!” The sound of the handset changing hands echoed across the line, followed by, “Josephine, it’s your mother.” Her southern drawl was more pronounced this morning than usual. Joey may have been born in SoCal, but her mother hadn’t been.
“Hi Mom,” Joey replied, holding her tongue for once. Who else would it be?
“Are you okay, sweetie? Where have you been? You should have called.” Words that should have sounded accusatory were softened by concern. Worry.
“It was late. I didn’t want to wake you,” Joey lied, a little chagrined but not ready to put her tail between her legs.
“If ever there were a time when you should wake us, it would be for something like this. Are you home now? I’ll send your brother to get you,” she said.
Joey caught the unmistakable sound of snapping fingers. She could imagine the curt gestures that her mother was making in Sam’s direction. In times of crisis, their Alpha’s first instinct was to close ranks and circle the wagons.
“I spent the night with friends,” Joey explained. “Mom, I’m okay. I mean, I’m not okay but…” She trailed off.
“You’re a strong girl. I know that, honey,” her mother said, in her “patient because I have to be” voice. “But really, you need to come home. We have to talk about this as a family.” Classic Mom-speak for “We can’t talk about this on the phone.”
“I know. I’ll be there soon. Just… call off the goons, okay?”
“I wish you wouldn’t call them that. Your brothers love you very much and they only want to keep you safe. We all do.”
It was true, of course. Nonetheless, Joey worried that once she set foot in her parents’ house again they’d never let her leave. Especially not with the possibility of a hunter on the prowl.
5
Joey studied the two-story Spanish Colonial out the passenger window as the cab rolled up the front drive. The Grant family home sprawled across the arid landscape, all creamy white stucco with wrought iron accents and a red tile roof. Her parents had purchased the luxurious home along with several acres of land nearly thirty years ago. They'd been new to the area at the time, looking for the right location with enough room for a pack of five to roam safely. A lot had changed since then, not the least of which was the addition of three more pack members; one by birth, one by tragedy, and one by marriage.
The pack’s holdings butted up against the San Diego Wildlife Refuge, far enough from the city to be safe and quiet but not so far as to sacrifice convenience entirely—unless, of course, one lost access to one’s car. Nearly three decades of urban sprawl meant their property was closer to the city limits than it had been, but it was still a solid thirty minute drive from downtown.
The exorbitant fare was far from Joey’s mind as the house loomed ahead. A knot of dread tightened in her stomach, which already roiled from a breakfast that refused to settle. The driveway branched off, leading both around to the back of the house and to the brick-paved circular drive in front. As the cab slowed to a stop, the front door opened and Joey’s eldest brother, a tall muscular man with close-cropped auburn hair, stepped out.
Joey passed her credit card to the cab driver and waited while he ran it. Sam came down the stairs and opened the car door for her. Normally, this sort of chivalry would get a rise out of her, but she climbed out of the cab without a word once her transaction was complete.
Sam closed the door behind her and fell in beside her as she headed for the steps. “Everyone’s waiting in the library.”
“Why aren’t you with them?”
“I was waiting for you.” He passed her on the steps to open the door and hold it open for her.
“You didn’t have to do that, I would’ve figured it out.”
Sam motioned her inside. “Alpha’s orders.”
Joey bit back a retort and went inside. Her heart ached too much to get into it with Sam. Despite his frustratingly chivalrous tendencies and unswerving deference to their mother, he was still her brother. She slipped her arm through his, and they moved deeper into the house together.
The queen was holding court from a wing-backed chair in the library when Joey paused at the threshold to take in the scene. The tension in the room eased palpably when Joey appeared, hale and hearty. Home and safe. Sam slipped away and went inside to find a seat. They were all there: her parents, her other two surviving brothers, and her lone sister-in-law. The whole family. The whole pack. Some packs, like theirs, formed along blood lines. Others grew out of convenience or necessity. Wolves, even family, didn’t always get along and it wasn’t uncommon for a wolf—particularly an alpha—to break from the pack and go off on their own.
Joey’s family was different. For one, they were almost all alphas. More alphas than a single pack could normally sustain. Despite their innately headstrong and dominant natures, they were closely bonded, and while they butted heads from time to time, a strong belief in family above all sustained that bond.
“Don’t hover in the doorway, Josephine. I taught you better than that. In or out.”
Joey stepped forward automatically, well-conditioned to conform to her mother’s expectations for appropriate behavior—or at least her tone of voice. Adelaide Grant was a no-nonsense woman, carefully composed even in the direst of circumstances. Even so, her eyes and nose were red from crying. In twenty-six years, Joey’d never seen her mother cry. The telltale evidence was unsettling.
Her father rose to greet her properly, enfolding her in his arms and hugging her tightly. He smelled warm and familiar, like coffee and turpentine, as if he’d come straight from his art studio. She breathed in deeply, and some of her frayed nerves mended.
“I’m so sorry, Kitten,” he said. An ironic nickname for a wolf, but it was what it was. He’d been using it as long as Joey could remember. It only bothered her when he used it in public.
“Me too, Dad. Me too,” she murmured, hugging him back. “I’m so sorry.”
He drew back, holding her at arm’s length. “That has the ring of an apology,” he observed, lips drawn in a small frown.
Although she wasn’t normally prone to open displays of submission, Joey kept her gaze lowered and bit her lip. “It is.” Once she started, the rest of the words came tumbling out like a waterfall. “This is all my fault. If I hadn’t let him go out alone—if I’d just gone with him…”
Reginald Grant sighed and pulled her close again, rubbing her back. “Kitten, this isn’t your fault.” He pressed a fatherly kiss to her brow.
She clung to him, not wanting to let go, taking some solace in his words even though she didn’t agree. He guided her to a settee and drew her down to sit with him, tucked close against his side. Ben, the youngest of her brothers, came over to sit on her other side. Snug between them, she accepted the heavy-bottomed glass Ben offered her and sniffed it before sipping the amber liquid it contained. Scotch wasn’t usually her thing, but she’d had the sort of day that merited exceptions. She shot him a look when he attempted to take the glass back and he tipped his head in acknowledgement, letting her keep it.
As she ventured another sip of the burning liquid, she spared a glance for Jon and Sara. Her middle brother met her gaze from where he sat on another settee with an arm around his wife. He nodded to Joey as Sara sniffled and blew her nose discreetly into a lace-edged handkerchief. Adelaide wasn’t the only one in the room with puffy red eyes, but Sara looked like she might burst into tears again at any moment.
Joey’s attention then turned to her mother. Right or wrong, Adelaide Grant always knew What To Do. At that moment—no matter how much she hated to admit it—Joey herself wasn’t sure what that was. For a long moment, mother and daughter locked eyes from afar, neither willing to be the first to look away. Adelaide was a strong alpha, and the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.
“The loss of Christopher is a great blow, and one that we will feel for a long time to come,” Adelaide said, after staring down her daughter for a time. As ever, when she spoke it was with au
thority. “Although not of our blood, he was still a son, a brother, and a friend.”
Around the room, heads nodded, but Joey frowned. “Not of our blood? Really?”
Ben laid a gentle hand on her arm. “She just means—”
“I know what she means,” Joey snapped, pulling her arm out from under his hand. “It’s just a shitty thing to say. You can’t say it isn’t.”
Adelaide cleared her throat and went on as if the disruption hadn’t happened. “I’m given to understand that the police are investigating his death as a homicide, but that evidence points toward a random act of violence. Of course, we all know that there’s more to this than meets the eye. As such, we’ll be conducting our own investigation. Until we know more, I want you all to stay close to home. If you do have to leave, don’t go out alone.”
“I’m not staying here.” The words popped out of Joey’s mouth against her better judgement, but being peeved with her mother to start with made them impossible to swallow. She glanced around the room in search of allies and, expecting none, wasn’t disappointed. Her brothers’ expressions ranged from smug to amused, not a surprised look among them. On the other extreme, Sara’s jaw looked like it was about to land in her lap. Joey figured her sister-in-law would get used to her headstrong ways eventually, but apparently five years wasn’t quite enough to get her there.
Her mother fixed Joey with her patented “you’re lucky I’m too civilized to put you over my knee” look. “Yes, Josephine, you are.”
Joey wasn’t so easily cowed. Lifting her chin and straightening her spine with a reply poised on the tip of her tongue, she opened her mouth but was forestalled when her father enfolded her free hand in his.
“We’ll figure something out,” he said, always the good cop to his wife’s bad cop. “The important thing is that we’re all safe and on alert.”
Joey frowned and grappled with her frustration in the face of his very logical and reasonable appeal. Eventually she sighed and swallowed further protests with another swig of scotch. They both burned on the way down.